Heading into the meet, Bray’s quickest personal best was the 54.12 he registered at last year’s Winter Junior Championships, but he demolished that mark, replacing it with an incredible 52.65 to race to the top seed at IUPUI Natatorium today.

Bray surpassed the previous swiftest HS recird mark of 52.92 held by Jacob Molacek of Creighton Prep from 2014.

With Creighton Prep being a private school and Avon a public, Molacek’s record should remain as the independent school record. Bray’s time then actually takes over the previous public high school record of 53.06 held by Connor Hoppe from Golden Valley High (California), also from 2014.

Bray was runner-up in the 100 breaststroke at the IHSAA Championship meet in 2015, clocking a 54.80 after 54.45 in prelims. As such, his time tonight was a huge drop for the senior, as the future Florida Gator’s mark of 52.65 would have placed 5th at last year’s SEC Championships and 15th at last year’s NCAAs. And, he still has finals tomorrow night.

To what does Bray attribute his incredible national record-breaking outing? “Most of it has to be my astounding coach Jon Karr. He really is one of the best coaches in the nation and has really elevated our entire program in the last few years,” Bray tells SwimSwam.

Bray continues, “We’ve been working on my breaststroke pullouts a lot, they used to be my weakness so coming into this season we watched a lot of film and trained a lot on them.”

As to his next move, Bray tells SwimSwam, “I’m just looking forward to spending my last day of high school swimming tomorrow with my teammates, coach and family.” Bray also qualified first in the 200 IM at the meet, earning a time of 1:48.33.

With newly-minted 50/100 yard freestyle American Record Holder Caeleb Dressel pulling double duty as the breaststroker on Florida’s medley relay, Bray’s performance is especially good news for the Gators headed into next season.

Finals at the IHSAA meet take place at IUPUI Natatorium tomorrow at 1pm.

Additional Highlights from Prelims:

Bray split 23.95 on his Avon squad’s 200 yard medley relay, which scored a collective time of 1:30.99 to take the top seed. Their mark is just over a second off of the 1:29.64 state record held by Chesterton. Additional Avon team members – Bryan Hammons (24.57), Vince Partlow (21.89), Grant Sprout (20.58).

Carmel’s Troy Li holds the top seed in the 200 freestyle, touching in the only sub-1:39 time of the morning – 1:38.62.

The top 4 swimmers of today’s 50 freestyle prelims scored sub-21 times, led by Zionsville’s Jack Franzman in 20.52. Ryan Huizing (20.71), Grant Sprout (20.97) and Ryan Hrosik (20.99) will be gunning for the state title tomorrow.

About Loretta Race

After 16 years at a Fortune 1000 financial company, long-time swimmer Retta Race decided to change lanes and pursue her sporting passion. She currently is Coach for the Northern KY Swordfish Masters, a team she started up in December 2013, while also offering private coaching. Retta is also an MBA …